Unique dual-screen design. Screens can be mirrored or extended for better multimedia and productivity. Smooth performance. Solid battery life.

Cons

Some software bugs. Distracting middle seam. Only one camera sensor. Bulky when folded.

Bottom Line

The ZTE Axon M for AT&T has a unique design that folds out to reveal a second display, effectively transforming the phone into a small tablet, but there are some kinks to work out.

Phones have become taller and thinner over the last few years, but their overall designs have remained fundamentally the same. The $724.99 ZTE Axon M for AT&T shakes things up by adding a second display. It's not an E Ink panel like on the Yotaphone, nor a strip on top like the LG V20. No, this is a full-on extra panel that folds out, turning the Axon M into a small tablet, and opening many new possibilities for multitasking and entertainment in the process.

It's an innovative implementation backed by solid hardware, but the addition of the second screen adds bulk, creates a distracting seam in the middle, and makes taking photos unwieldy. Most people will find it smoother to use the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 or S8+ for a big-screen productivity and multimedia experience.

Design and Features

We've seen the dual-screen approach before, in the form of the Kyocera Echo back in 2011. ZTE has refined the concept here, but it's not entirely dissimilar. When folded closed, the Axon M is a thick half-inch slab with a band of metal running along the sides and matching screens on the front and back connected by a hinge. The feeling isn't too dissimilar from glass-clad phones like the S8 or iPhone 8, though the Axon M is quite a bit thicker and heavier.

When folded shut, the phone measures 5.9 by 2.8 by 0.5 inches (HWD). It weighs 8.1 ounces, making it significantly heftier than phones like the Samsung Galaxy S8 (5.9 by 2.7 by 0.3 inches, 5.5 ounces). The entire right side is taken up by a hinge which can make it feel a little uncomfortable in your grip. That said, it's easy to hold in one hand and reach across the screen with your thumb.

The hinge on the right side means most of the buttons are on the left. There you'll find a volume rocker, a large power button that doubles as a fingerprint sensor, and a semi-programmable button that launches TV mode— a feature that launches a video streaming app of your choice from the lockscreen. There's also a SIM/microSD card slot, which worked fine with a 256GB card.

The top has a 3.5mm headphone jack that supports high-fidelity audio with Dolby Atmos software. Listening with a pair of Meze 99 Classics gives you good audio quality, but it's not something that stands out unless you're using FLAC files. The bottom has a pair of speakers with a USB-C port sandwiched between. The hinge itself feels sturdy, likely it should be able to withstand a good deal of wear and tear.

Displays, Multitasking, and Multimedia

Two displays are better than one, is the reasoning behind the Axon M. What you get are a pair of 5.2-inch, 1080p dual IPS LCDs with 426 pixels per inch, similar to what you find on the Moto G5 Plus, though less sharp than the Quad HD panel of the Note 8 (521ppi). Both screens are still pretty sharp for the size and boast good viewing angles, though screen brightness could afford to be higher for outdoor use.

When the phone is open you have a sizable, almost 6.8-inch screen packed into a form-factor that keeps the phone a reasonable size. Only bezeless, tall-and-narrow phones like the Note 8 (6.3-inch) and S8+ 6.2 (6.2-inch) will give you a similar amount of screen space.

The primary screen is the one where the earpiece and camera are located. The one on the back remains off (and just looks like a plain glass back) until you unfold the hinge. Using the software Multitasking button on the bottom right of the main screen you can choose what the extra screen does. There are three options— Mirror mode, which makes the two panels display the same content; Dual Screen mode, which lets you run two different apps side by side (like a video and Twitter, for instance), and Extended mode, which extends content across other screens.

In Extended mode, the phone becomes closer in size to a small tablet like the Amazon Fire 7. This is ideal for watching video or playing games like Final Fantasy XV: A New Empire. The phone is able to display a large amount of content, relative to even tall and narrow phones like the Note 8. City building games and strategy games that take place on maps seem to particularly benefit from this, letting you easily get a broad overview of the game. Going back to a single screen felt cramped. However, a seam runs down the middle where the two screens meet, which can be distracting in Extended mode, especially when you're watching video or browsing the web.

Moving a compatible app in Dual Screen mode is easy, requiring a three finger swipe gesture to move an app from one panel to another. I liked being able to check my emails while watching a video, for instance, and I can see this feature being useful for productivity. Screen mirroring, on the other hand, I didn't find much use for, though ZTE suggests you can use it to show people slideshows if you don't have another screen available. It still strikes me as impractical.

Ultimately, all the modes worked reasonably well, but I did encounter some hiccups. For instance, snapping the phone closed sometimes resulted in one or more of the apps I was running crashing when in Extended mode or Dual Screen mode. Occasionally, switching between modes also resulted in some stuttering, most notably the three finger swipe gesture often took several seconds to kick in. These issues weren't frequent, but they do show that some of the software is still a little buggy and not completely stable.

Currently, there are about 100 apps optimized for support in Extended mode, with more on the way. You can also enable a setting to force all apps to work, though that can be a little buggy with not all elements being properly displayed.

Network Performance and Connectivity

The Axon M is an AT&T exclusive phone with LTE bands 2/4/5/12/29/30/66 giving you good network connectivity on the carrier. In midtown Manhattan, I got solid network performance with a top speed of 12Mbps down and 10Mbps up, which is standard for AT&T phones in the area. Other connectivity includes dual-band Wi-Fi, NFC, and Bluetooth 4.2.

Call quality is decent. Transmissions can sound a bit robotic, but they come across clearly and noise cancellation does well at blotting out background noise. Earpiece volume is loud enough to hear in a noisy environment.

Processor, Battery, and Camera

The phone is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 with 4GB of RAM. On the AnTuTu benchmark, it scores 145,457 in full-screen mode. That's not quite on par with the Snapdragon 835 you'll find in the Note 8 (173,608) and most other high-end phones, but it's still powerful enough to ensure smooth performance. The phone handled multitasking across both screens and demanding games like Final Fantasy without any significant stuttering.

Battery life is surprisingly good given the fact the 3,180mAh cell has to power two screens. In our battery rundown test, in which we stream full-screen video over LTE at maximum screen brightness, the Axon M clocks 7 hours, 34 minutes of runtime with one screen, and 4 hours, 39 minutes with two. That's a great runtime compared with other big screen phones like the Note 8 (6 hours) and LG V30 (4 hours, 46 minutes). The phone also supports Qualcomm Quick Charge 3.0, so you can charge to full in a little under two hours.

See How We Test Cell Phones

The camera setup is interesting. There's only a single 20-megapixel camera sensor on what's essentially the front of the phone. That means to take a standard picture (not a selfie) you have to flip the phone around, at which point the viewfinder appears on the rear display. If you're big on taking quick snaps, this can be a pretty big inconvenience since it requires you to flip the camera view around, and flip the phone around as well.

The camera is pretty standard in other regards. It took clear photos in a brightly lit setting and pretty nice selfies due to the high megapixel count. Most shots had a decent level of detail and accurate color reproduction, but I found autofocus to be an issue. The sensor often seemed to blur, even in well-lit settings where it should have been capturing crisp shots. This is more pronounced in low-light pictures which all ended up being quite noisy. You do have manual controls letting you adjust things like ISO and white balance, but the main issue seems to be the lack of optical image stabilization. Video is a sharp 4K at 30fps, but recordings are jittery when panning around.

Software

The Axon M comes running 7.1.2 Nougat with ZTE custom UI, which largely adds the aforementioned Multitasking button to the phone. Other UI changes are light and restricted to visual elements like the lockscreen and app icons.

Like all carrier phones, there's a significant amount of bloatware with 13 preloaded AT&T apps which can't be uninstalled. You also have DirectTV Now, one of the video streaming services you can automatically launch by pressing the TV button. Third-party apps include Amazon, Facebook, and Uber. Out of 64GB of total storage, the Axon M has 43.02GB available for use. That's a good amount of space and if you need more you can always use an SD card.

Conclusions

At $725, the Axon M is priced similarly to the Galaxy S8 and iPhone 8, but nearly $200 less than the Note 8. The thing to understand about the Axon M is that it isn't intended to be a flagship phone or a successor to the Axon 7. It's a niche phone that's likely to be most appealing to business users who want something that can turn into a slate to bang out emails while browsing at the same time. It's also handy for travelers who want to use the phone as their primary media consumption device.

All that said, it's exclusive to AT&T, which limits the phone's reach, and whether the average buyer finds it attractive will likely depend on which apps take the best advantage of the dual-screen design. Most users will likely be better off getting a more traditional phone like the S8, which maximizes screen real estate in a smaller form-factor.

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About the Author

Ajay Kumar is PCMag's Analyst obsessed with all things mobile. Ajay reviews phones, tablets, accessories, and just about any other gadget that can be carried around with you. In his spare time he games on the rig he built himself, collects Nintendo amiibos, and tries his hand at publishing a novel. Follow Ajay on Twitter @Ajay_H_Kumar.

ZTE Axon M

ZTE Axon M

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